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23 August, 2012

Throughout
history the peoples of Asia have been known for their mobility and
interactions. The notion of territorially defined nations is historically
recent. There was a continuing
dialogue between Asian cultures which functioned at both the spatial and the
temporal
level, propelled by the movement of the great religions of Asia across
continents via trading communities, clergies, Buddhist and Sufi scholars and
communities of artisans.

The
present volume explores the aesthetic theories underlying many genres of the
Asian arts. These characterize the dialogue between and amongst different Asian
regions. The same Asian notions of space and time are manifested in
architectural form as also in a wide variety of visual arts. The contributors
in this volume identify the multi-layered discourse comprising the nature of
monuments, as also the movement of motifs and symbols though sculptured and
picturised representation. Some essays focus on fundamental notions such as Sunyata
as common to the Indian, Korean and other Asian countries. Also, the papers
bear testimony to the phenomena of dialogue and distinctiveness, continuity and
change. This is evident in architectural structures, sculptural forms,
particularly in iconography, and of course in the performing arts.

The
IIC-Asia Project in its second phase has, with purpose, traced the trajectory
of transmission systems in Asian civilization in different domains and at
different levels, be it the vertical transmission from generation to generation
in education, or the artistic transmission and diffusion through the arts. It
is hoped that this volume will add to the meager literature that exists on the
subject and will stimulate further research and study.

Himanshu
Prabha Ray
is at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New
Delhi.

Scott
Waring, a British historian of the early nineteenth century wrote, ‘The
Mahrattas were once a mighty nation. How they rose, and how they fell, may
surely challenge enquiry’. This was, perhaps, the main reason why
administrators, researchers and historians—both Indian and foreign have been
attracted towards the history of Marathas from seventeenth century till this
day. A contention that is amply reiterated by the scope of the present volume.

This
work on Maratha historiography is divided into three parts. It starts with an
account
of the writings of the foreign historians Cosme da Guarda (Portuguese), M.C.
Sprengel
(German) and Robert Orme, Scott Waring, Elphinstone and Grant Duff (British).

The
second part of the work is devoted to the Archival movement in Bombay
Presidency in the colonial period and the popular movement launched by the
Maratha scholars against the rigid policy regarding the access to the State
Archives, and the amount of source material collected by them. The contribution
of Kashinath Narayan Sane, Vasudeo Vaman Khare, Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade,
Dattatraya Balwant Parasnis is discussed in this part.

The
work also analyses the contribution of the medieval chroniclers or the bakharkars,
to historical writings on Marathas and an assessement of the major modern
Indian historians, namely G.S. Sardesai, Jadunath Sarkar, and Surendra Nath Sen
along with many others.

The
post-Independence phase is discussed by the author in the last chapter.

A.R.
Kulkarni
(b. 1925) Professor Emeritus of History, University of Pune, has had a long
teaching career (1949-85). His major published works are Maharashtra in the
Age of Shivaji (also in Marathi & Hindi) and James Cuninghame Grant
Duff (also in English & Hindi)
which have won national and state awards.

This
felicitation volume is in honour of Professor Hermann Kulke whose contribution
to the world of history, especially Indian history, is very well known. It
incorporates eassays which are thematically and spatially related to his areas
of interest. Thus, the three sections into which the contributions are
organized broadly overlap with some of the areas of historical enquiry as well
as geographical regions that have attracted Professor Kulke – Historians and
Historiography, South and Southeast Asia and last but not the least, Orissa.

The
first section includes an article, ‘Ways of Questioning: Historians and
Historiography’, that highlights, Professor Kulke’s contribution to the study
of Indian history and culture. The other chapters focus on major issues related
to archaeology, historiography, and the significance of the horse in India
history.

The
next section includes chapters that examine issues related to Kharavela, The
Date Formula in Ceylonese inscriptions, Tradition and Time, Trade, Vidisa
during the Guptas, Early Medieval Orissa and Tagore’s Perceptions of Southeast
Asia.

Finally,
the third section contains eassays that explore the Oriya identity movement in
Singhbhum, the blurred boundaries between religion and politics, the making of
cultural identity, the rumours associated with Gandhi in the literary tracts,
the problems of decolon-ization, sub-regional centres like Khallikote in
south-western Orissa, the colonial classification of the Kondh tribe and the
Saivite version of the puja manuals of Jagannatha of Puri.

Besides
historians, this book would attract political sociologists, social
anthropologists and indologists.

Though
much has been written in recent years on different facets of partition, the
hopes and disillusionments of refugees and the possibility of their integration
in Pakistan and gradual alienation of the succeeding generations in the wake of
rising ethnic and sectarian violence has seldom constituted a part of political
and social discourse.

This
volume deals primarily with the experience of partition refugees in Pakistan.
Issues like partition carnage, pangs of displacement, the challenges of
resettlement and the deliberate policy of the state and ruling elites to
disempower the Muhajirs and their reassertion as a poltical force constitute
some of the major areas of concern for the study. The meteoric rise
of the MQM as a political power and its campaigns against feudalism, sardari
system, intelligence agencies, as well as terrorism and religious parties have
been dealt with in this work.

The
work also refers to the clash of interests, frequent outbreaks of violence in
Karachi and urban Sind, refugee uprising, tussle for power role of the civil
and military bureaucracy
to contain and control the emerging political forces and speculates upon the
challenges of disintegration.

This
timely study also highlights Pakistan’s approach towards the refugees and
explains
the dynamics of social and cultural interaction between the newly arriving
Muhajirs and the natives.

Amtul
Hassan
is presently doing her M.Phil. in International Relations from Karachi
University. The areas of her interest include forced migration, human rights,
movement for democracy and human security issues.

Jaipur
is the first planned city of northern India after Mohenjo-daro and the Greek
city of Sirkap in Taxila. Its builder was Sawai Jai Singh, the versatile ruler
of Amer whose multifarious activities as a statesman, an astronomer and a
patron of Hinduism form part of this book.

The
planning of the city too was perhaps done by Jai Singh himself, ably assisted
by a Bengali Brahman, Vidyadhar, who later became his favourite minister.

Within
a few years of its founding Jaipur became and has since remained the most
important city in Rajasthan. From the start it has had a good water supply
system. In providing street lighting, medical facilities, higher education,
etc., it has kept pace with modern cities of India. By the middle of the 19th
century it had become a centre of banking and jewellery trade in north India
and by the end of the century a centre of Sanskrit learning.

One
of the products of the city was Todarmal, who was perhaps the first writer of
modern Hindi prose. The city is also an important religious centre. The history
of Jaipur could thus he said to be the history of civilization in norther India
during the 18th and 19th centuries.

This
capital story of the birth and
growth of the capital of one of the most forward looking states of India should
be of interest to the lay reader as well as to specialist.

Ashim
Kumar Roy,
a product of Presidency College, Calcutta joined the Indian Administrative
Service in 1949 and served in the state and central government in various
capacities. During 1959-60 he was at Harvard University as a Ford Foundation
Fellow. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from Rajasthan University in 1976.

A
long historical perspective would probably describe India as a country that has
always been at the very centre of things in Asia. An ancient cultural matrix of
Asian civilizations, India had close interactions with its eastern neighbours
through centuries and was deeply involved
in the pan-Asianist and decolonization movements during the first part of the
Twentieth
Century. Novertheless, by the early 1990s, India found itself so estranged from
its eastern neighbourhood that it had to formulate a proactive policy to return
to the Asian fold. A Look East policy was thus officially launched as a
deliberate attempt on India’s part to emulate the ‘Asian Miracle’ and to
associate itself with East Asia, a region that stood as one of the most dynamic
in the world. India’s long history in Asia has since entered a new era.

In
this volume, Isabelle Saint-Mézard analyses the Look East policy in a
comprehensive way, stringing together its various developments and nuances over
one decade and a half. Her focus is on the politico-economic dynamics of the
policy. At the same time, she acknowledges the multifaceted nature of the Look
East policy and underlines its ideological and cultural dimensions, as well as
its security-related aspects. Shifting in perspectives, her study also shows
how countries and regional organizations in East Asia have responded to India’s
opening up. The reprecussions of the 1997 financial crisis on the
multidimensional rapprochement between India and East Asia have also been
analysed.

The
study proceeds to evaluate the results of the policy. The Look East policy has
no doubt stimulated ecomimic, political, institutional and strategic ties with
East Asia, and more importantly India has increasingly identified itself with
Asia. Thus, the author shows that the Look East policy has become a major
dimension of India’s new external relations in the post-Cold War era. One of
the most remarkable features of this policy is that it has been cleverly
pursued in congruence with trends in regionalization and that it has helped
India to reposition itself as a major player in Asia.

Isabelle
Saint-Mézard
holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Institut de Sciences
Politiques (Sciences Po), Paris. She was based at the Centre of Asian Studies,
the University of Hong Kong from 2003 to 2006.

The
distinguishing features of this classic dictionary are: the space assigned to
the etymology of words; the arrangement of words which are similarly spelt but
differently derived into separate paragraphs according to their etymology; the
indicating postposition by means of which an indirectly transitive, or an
intransitive verb governs its object, and the change of meaning which
frequently takes place by the employment of different postpositions after a
verb (many verbs, in existing dictionaries, are given as transitive, thus
leading one to suppose that they govern the accusative case, whereas they
govern, it may be, the genitive, or the ablative, or the locative; e.g. gabza
karna is called a transitive verb, although it governs the locative); the
admission of numerous words which do not find place in the literary language.

This
volume is an invaluable accessory for the scholars of classical Urdu and Hindi.

John
Thompson Platts
(1830-1904) was born in Kolkata. He became head of Saugor School in 1859 and
headmaster of Benares College in 1861. After his retirement from India, Platt
was elected teacher of Persian at Oxford University in 1880. He wrote works on
the grammer of Hindustani and Persian and compiled a number of dictionaries of
Asian languages.

Cultural
Dynamics and Strategies of the Indian Elite (1870-1947): Indo-French and Anti-French Under the Raj

By-
Samuel Berthet

Published
in Association with Centre de Sciences Humaines, New Delhi

The
history of French culture in India tends to show that if for long conflicts in
the colonial context have been studied in a dual perspective, they can be
better understood in a polyphonic one. From the nineteenth century onwards,
along with the opposition between the British tending to increasingly impose
their dominance, and the Indian élite trying to assimilate and manufacture a
modern identity of its own, France and French culture provided an alternate
space for cultural negotiation. Perceived in Europe and beyond as the modern culture
par excellence, the most anglicized of the Indian élite engaged themselves in a
process of appropriation of French as an alternate path for cultural discourse.
The direct consequence of this was the rapid progress of French language in
Indian universities by the end of the nineteenth century.

The
British authorities were prompt to react and tried to contain the development
of French culture within the educative institutions. The new space for culture
making created by
the Indo-French dialogue is now open to political interpretations, at times
conflicting. The relations between Rabindranath Tagore and Sylvain Lévi is one
instance of the difficulties for a colonizing power to acknowledge the modern
ferment within the colonized regions of the world in the twentieth century.
Nevertheless, as this volume so eloquently portrays, the dynamics of cultural
and scientific exchanges were in motion between France and India, through the
Indian diaspora and French intellectuals associating themselves with India and
Indian reformist movements.

Samuel
Berthet
has been a lecturer at Visva Bharati and Jawaharlal Nehru universities.
Affiliated to the Centre de Sciences Humaines, he is currently research
coordinator for the South Asia Europe Maritime Heritage Project conducted under
the aegis of the Centre for French and Francophone Studies (JNU).